by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“We always felt like Warp was the right move,” says Edward Droste, founder of Brooklyn’s Grizzly Bear. “We liked the people and their history and the direction they were going in, and I’m so glad we did it.”

The British record label, once the exclusive stomping ground of IDM artists like Aphex Twin and Squarepusher, has opened up new territory in recent years, signing the likes of Broadcast, Maximo Park and Grizzly Bear. Likewise, Grizzly Bear was initially Droste’s solo project, a pretty folk exercise spurred by a messy break-up. His 2004 debut album, Horn of Plenty, featured some writing and production by Christopher Bear, while the remixed reissue stars the likes of Final Fantasy, Dntel and Ariel Pink. The collaborative ball continued to roll through the making of Yellow House, a living, breathing, sighing, wheezing album that’s pretty and pastoral on top, and dark and murky underneath.

Ahead of Grizzly Bear’s return to Montreal, where, Droste says, they were stricken with the world’s worst sound (“It probably damaged us in Montreal’s mind,” he says), Droste tells the Mirror about getting to know Final Fantasy’s Owen Pallett, reinterpreting a dead relative’s song and building the band, show by show.

Mirror: Tell me about your live show.

Edward Droste: The live show is the reason the band formed. When I wanted to put something together for the first album, Chris Bear joined me, and then Chris Taylor, and then Dan [Rossen]. We were faced with having to recreate these songs as a four-piece and that’s sort of where we found the sound of the band—it just wasn’t gonna be a solo situation anymore. Of course, the recordings are much more layered, but we don’t have a symphony or a chorus of people behind us, so we do what we can.

M: I’m curious about your great-aunt’s song, “Marla.” In what context did she write it?

ED: As far as I know, she was attempting to become a singer in New York in the ’30s and she didn’t really go anywhere. She had an alcohol problem and died of cirrhosis of the liver in the ’40s. There were these recordings that I think my family was aware of, they had heard some of them, but they were 78s and they only recently transferred them to CD—that’s how I had access to them. There were 23 on the CD, just voice and piano, all nameless with no lyrics or anything, and track three was just the one. I brought it to the band with the idea of slowing it down and putting a new spin on it and they were psyched to do it.

M: And Owen Pallett arranged strings on that one. How did you hook up with him in the first place?

ED: You’d be amazed what just e-mailing someone out of the blue will yield. I was putting the remix thing together and people were writing back to me, like, “Yeah, I’d love to do it, that sounds really cool”—some of them had heard of us, some of them hadn’t. That’s how I touched base with Owen Pallett. I didn’t actually know him, I knew his music. Then he came to New York and invited me to the Arcade Fire show, and then he came and saw our show. But what really cemented our friendship was going on tour with them this past spring in Canada. Now we talk once a week and basically gossip together.

With TV on the Radio at le National on Friday, Oct. 13, 9 p.m., $17

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